Month: February 2009

Juana Molina, Juana Molina, Juana Molina, and Juana Molina (along with Gregor Hilbe on drums and Martin Iannaccone on bass for most of the night) played the Trouadour Tuesday night. Molina spins out a magical web of sounds based on something called looping. Think of a loop as a section of a song that one plays, say on guitar, and then replays after it is recorded, with the option of recording more over the top of what has already been played. Molina uses four of these loopers plus what she plays and sings over them after recording them: building some up while taking others out, now a vocal loop with another voice dubbed over it, a synthesizer might come in while layers of guitar shift and swirl in everchanging textures. Molina’s playing requires an insane amount of multitasking and juggling. Hilbe managed to sound like Molina’s idiosyncratic percussion through a combination of wonderful playing and technological wizardry, thickening his beats by running them through pitch-shifting delays on a MacBook. Iannaccone also did a fantastic job on bass and occasional backing vocals.

At one point, the band left her to her own devices for a few minutes then came back with some low-tech wizardry for a change. A table with 3 overturned plastic bar glasses was set up on stage, and the three musicians played a percussion game consisting of pounding the the cups in a rhythm interspersed with claps and everyone exchanging cups to the beat. It was great fun and sounded quite cool…I think there was a contact mike on the table. It reminded me of the bottle-and-ashtray-with-handclaps percussion of the Dixie Cups classic “Iko Iko.”

All the machinery could be a recipe for mechanical sounding music, but she never sounds canned. In fact, mixing all the loops together almost always results in some unique, irreproducable sounds. The danger is that mistakes get replicated too and one little glitch can wreck the most carefully planned loop. The trick here is to turn glitches into musical moments on their own terms, which I think happened once or twice during the night.

The music is stunning, and at the risk of sounding new agey, it has an opening up effect on me, something that I might have called spiritual a few years ago, but for now I’ll just enjoy it it without having to label it. This goes along with Molina’s lyrical intent. Most of the songs are in Spanish, but while I would like to understand the words better, much of the singing is just notes with no particular words. I think this helps her cross-cultural appeal, because she sings in a more or less universal language all her own.

I managed to get right up front without knocking anyone over or barging forward in spite of the nearly full house. On the right at the top is the best of the lousy iPhone pix I was able to get, and below are my attempts to make them a bit more interesting.

Finally, as always, give a listen to rreplay and the rest of my music on way.net.

Caught Anavan (myspace) at the Smell Saturday night, where they played from the floor rather than the stage and got almost all of the 100 or so people “up real close til it’s uncomfortable” (actually what they said was a bit ruder) and then proceeded to set the whole thing off into a forty minute mosh pit/dance floor set to their beat-heavy, guitarless, raunch-synth driven pop-tinged mayhem. I couldn’t really see what was going on except when Aaron Buckley gave up his drums to stand on a table or something and hold forth above the crowd, inciting further motion on the floor, but everyone was moving. Great live show, and I wonder how they fare when the crowd is bigger and less familiar with their music. You could tell they loved playing at the Smell and the Smell requited it on Valentines Day.

The other act we caught was tleilaxu music machine, a one-person rant caromed over the top of superhyperindustrialdrummachinesynth pummeling. Outfitted in a lovely black sundress with striped kneesocks, arm hoisery, and workboots, the dreaded and bearded guy running the machine drove a bunch of people from the room when he started but then drew just as many back in…after a minute or two of acclimation to the sound, it began to take root in some part of the lizard brain and actually became compelling, and he put everything into the performance, moshing away with the crowd and rolling on the floor as he alternated between setting and playing synth patches and growling and roaring through the microphone.

Also playing, but I failed to catch them, were Extreme Animals, faav, and the two-drums-and-glockenspiel puppy dog. Next time. And hey, what’s with this trend of unreadable (unless you highlight everything), seizure-inducing strobomatic clashing color myspace pages? Ouch.
As always, check out rreplay and all the other great music on Way.Net.

Opening band Fool’s Gold, from LA, had great energy, it it was kind of a wonder that we went from their tremendously upbeat music to Cat Power’s much more subdued delivery — it speaks a lot to the talents of both. My favorite moment from them was “Ha Dvash” which managed to get Tianawaren-sounding Tuareg desert guitar with the chords and beat of “Don’t Rock the Boat Baby.” And I guess it is in Hebrew. Fool’s Gold pitch themselves as tropical, drawing heavily on Afropop, but try as I might, I kept hearing space for fiddles and the drone of bagpipes in the three guitars. It left me wondering if there is a category for “Afro-Scotch.” I think in part it was the guitars not quite getting the polyrhythmic thumb-piano and xylophone derived rhythm playing of the best soukous and other Afropop guitarists. Mind you it still sounds great if you just give up the desire for authenticity, which is way overrated in music, and embrace your inner Scotsperson along with your Juju-dancing, high-life playing Afropoppish self. The ryhthm section was awesome, especially Argentinian percussionist Erica Garcia, who played full-body percussion, sometimes stretching time to its limits while other times being totally in the pocket. She was funnest to watch, but the rest of the formidable drum and percussion crew were also excellent, as you will discover if you give them a listen. You can do that on myspace (change the text color or the background so we can read it though!) or live at the Echo in Echo Park every Monday night if I heard right (better check before going though).

Finally, as always, give a listen to rreplay and the rest of my music on way.net.

Rich Rath’s “The Revolution will not be on the Internet” is going to be part of “Art for a Change,” an exhibition by artist English artist Alan Dunn on how artists, writers, and musicians have have used the word “revolution.” I’m still pinching myself to see if it’s true. As part of the exhibition, which will take place in May 2009, Dunn will make and give away for free 1000 double CDs each with a twelve page booklet that will include, besides “The Revolution will not be on the Internet,” a whole slew of artists and musicians. The most famous will be John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who will be represented by a London TV interview from 1972 (I think it is London Weekend Colour show “Aquarius” listed here). The interview took place in the midst of John’s deportation proceedings, which he ultimately beat.

Some more not too shabby company: A clip from Aldous Huxley’s dystopic 1962 talk at Berkeley, “The Ultimate Revolution” [text] [audio] [comments], a 1968 speech by Fred Hampton, the Black Panther murdered in his sleep by the FBI, British anarchist collective band Chumbawamba‘s “Liberation” from the Revolution 7″, ex-Guided By Voices member Robert Pollard’s new band Boston Spaceships playing “Headache Revolution,” Fiomily, a duo consisting of two German teenagers performing “Talking About A Revolution” from youtube, and French punk band Sylvester Staline playing “Revolution is Trendy.”

If I get some time, I’ll find out more about the other contributors and post about them. Here is the whole list of confirmed contributors so far: Aldous Huxley, Sara Marlowe, Chumbawamba, Fiomily, Fred Hampton, Sylvester Staline, Foreign Investment, Boston Spaceships, The Pinker Tones, A Challenge Of Honour, Rich Rath, Miek en Roel, Marcel Duchamp, Giddee Limit, Cyness, Mark Dowding and Chris Harvey, Cameron Carpenter, Redskins, Charles Dreyfus, Herbert Marcuse, Rob Sewell, Schoolz Of Thought, Pekatralatak, Flag Poles, Microphone Killa, Mellow Mark featuiring Gentleman, Marcel Journet, AMBASSADOR21, Alex Dempster, David Jacques, Kurda Abdulla, Pimiento Pastel, Kelvin K, Nataliya Nadtoka, The Sound of Aircraft Attacking Britain, Simon Whetham, Gintas K, Mark Whitford, Samantha Wass, Diego Restrepo, Expresión Sonora, Yolanda Spínola Elías, Aidan Deery, Alma Tischler-Wood, Rie Nakajima, Kevin Logan, nerefuh, Sara Jones, Raul Castro, Lennon & Ono, AD&THEFILMTAXI, DZ, Nels, Marco Capelli, Warsaw Poland Bros, Derek Horton, S. Bin Astrid/The Committee, Douglas Gordon, Katrin Lock, Jeff Young, Paul Ashton, James Chinneck, Elisabeth Davies, Grrrls Next Door, Ricardo Basbaum, Peter Suchin.

As always, check out my music from way.net and rreplay.

First post from LA, Where I’ll be spending the next few months. We are staying downtown, and as it turns out there is a fantastic club there called the Smell. They are cooperatively run, with founder Jim Smith getting help from the bands and people who come to listen. I found out about the place from a great writeup in LA Weekly this week. No alcohol, and I saw no signs of the usual bar-like scene of fuckups fucking things up by being wasted on this or that…it’s just about the music, which is fantastic.

I dropped in this past Saturday during a great set by the Ninja Academy. They consist of a drummer, Outdo-Ninja and bass player Indo-Ninja (who did all sorts of tapping and chord work run through distortion, echo, and a looper). For about half the songs they were accompanied by two women, one a Taiko drummer, Gongis Khan, and the other, Ninjamamalickum, probably getting a most awesome sounding revenge on her parents for making her learn Japanese traditional vocal music. She had this voice that emits probably the most decibels per pound of any singer in the world. Check “Robot Falls in Love with Computer” on their myspace page (linked above) for a taste that can’t begin to match the live effect. The guys wore ninja masks for the whole performance so you could not tell who they were. Khan was in a taiko drumming outfit and I think Ninjamamalickum wore a kimono, can’t remember. Ninjamamalickum’s theatrics seemed very carefully worked out and probably drawn from Japanese music, though I know nothing about Japanese traditional music, so who knows.

After Ninja Academy came Good for Cows, a Bay Area instrumental duo comprising Ches Smith on drums and Devin Hoff on double bass. Smith played with his feet on the drums to change their pitch, and rubbed cymbals to get a peculiar ringing buzz out of them besides rubbing the drums like they were congas. Hoff played an electric upright bass, sometimes bowed, mostly plucked and occasionally run through some effects. They rocked too.

I missed the other three bands that played there, Clevis (also listen to their myspace), Totally Serious, and Bay Area shredders We Be the Echo. I hope I get to catch them some other time, especially Clevis, whose music I liked a lot.

As always, give a listen to my music if you get a chance! Who knows, maybe I’ll get a chance to play at the Smell too. If you are in LA, I hope you check this place out.